Through the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a series of meditative prayers helping people find God in their everyday experiences, the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative provides tools that allow prisoners to find healing and forgiveness and to recognize their lives have meaning and purpose. As JRJI’s Executive Director, Fr. Kennedy also reaches out to victims and their families to provide support and healing. The group’s advocacy outreach from its headquarters in Culver City, Calif., includes mobilizing communities to transform the justice system from one that is solely punitive to one that is restorative.  Fr. Kennedy has been recognized for JRJI’s efforts to transform the lives of incarcerated youth, their families and communities by the California Chief of Probation Officers and the City of Los Angeles.

In this Ignatian News Network video piece below, you can find out more about Fr. Kennedy and the work of the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative to bring hope to Los Angeles’ incarcerated juveniles:

Lt. Sam Robinson/San Quentin State Prison

Jesuit Father George Williams recently became the new Catholic chaplain of San Quentin State Prison in California and said of his new job, “God jumps out at you when you least expect it.”

Fr. Williams, who served 15 years in prison ministries in Massachusetts before being appointed to his “dream job” at California’s oldest penitentiary, sees Christ in the Hell’s Angel shouting a greeting, “Hey, from one angel to another, how’s it going?”

He sees Christ in the lifers who are studying theology and said the inmates sometimes stump him with their insightful questions and surprise him with their knowledge of church teaching.

The facility houses nearly 6,000 prisoners, and about a quarter of them are Catholic.

Williams is in charge of a full sacramental calendar: baptisms at Easter; confirmations; confessions, which are significant for their healing and forgiving; the Eucharist; and anointing of the sick.

Although taken aback by San Quentin’s harsh conditions — he wears a bulletproof vest to work — he was pleasantly surprised by the plethora of programs, beautiful Catholic chapel and hordes of volunteers who bring “a humanness here I didn’t expect.”

“You see the Gospel in a totally different light in prison,” Williams said. “The early Christians were no strangers to prison and execution, including Jesus.”

As a Jesuit priest, his mission is to go where the need is greatest, Williams said.

“Nowhere is there a greater need than in the prison system that holds more than 2 million mostly poor and often disenfranchised people,” he said. “I feel a call to respond to that need.”

Read more about Williams at Catholic San Francisco.

Jesuit Father George Williams, a member of the New England Province, has made prison ministry his calling for the past 15 years. He owes his priestly ministry to inmates — he began his work as a Jesuit brother, but inmates pleaded with him to offer the sacraments.

Fr. Williams served as chaplain at a medium-security state prison in Concord, Mass., and recently began work at San Quentin Prison in California.

“We are dealing with the most despised people in our country,” he said of his ministry.

Williams doesn’t expect to perform miracles, but does hope to have an impact at San Quentin, which has more than 5,000 inmates, including a death row.

He said that it’s easy to slip into cynicism or compassion fatigue. He also doesn’t expect that his preaching or counsel will transform the life of a convict. “I can’t fix people,” Williams  said. “Measuring success is sometimes to go to the funeral of a person you have confirmed and baptized. You can’t make them be happy or be free.”

Read more about Williams and other Jesuits engaged in prison ministry.

Jesuit Brother Pat Douglas (far left) with co-workers at the Lakota Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Jesuit Brother Pat Douglas, of the Wisconsin Province, is a youth counselor at the St. Francis Mission in South Dakota, and he works with young men at the juvenile detention center on the Lakota Rosebud Reservation. He sees his ministry as a way of making an impact on young people in trouble.

Spirituality is very strong here, Br. Douglas says. The Lakota people see no separation between counseling and spirituality.

Douglas has developed a mentoring program for young men, “many [who are] active in gangs and from families plagued by alcoholism and abuse.

“I’m all for consequences,” Douglas says, “but if we do not address the hurts these young men have had since they were children, they will keep hurting others. To be empathetic to a perpetrator does not mean you condone what they do.”

Douglas sees Jesuit spirituality coming alive through his work.

“I pray before and after I meet with the guys,” he says. “I also know the limitations of my skills, and have many times asked questions or offered advice that I know is beyond me. I consistently feel the Holy Spirit working with me and these young men.”

For more on Jesuits engaged in prison ministry, visit the Wisconsin Province website.

Jesuit Father Ted Kalamaja has spent the past 25 years of his life working in a New Orleans prison and said he has loved every minute of it.

It’s a ministry he discovered during a sabbatical in Berkeley, Calif.  Fr. Kalamaja said he was thinking about what he wanted to do and when he went to a prison it hit him: “There was this huge mess hall and there were all these inmates sitting there in blue denim. I knew then that this was the reason I was brought there. I could minister to these men because there was nothing between me and these inmates. I had free access and felt they needed me.”

It began as a six-week stint as a chaplain to the prison and became his calling.

Today Kalamaja is a chaplain at the New Orleans Parish Prison, where he said, “There has never been any trouble or violence in the prison for me. These are just poor, poor people and our culture has ripped them off.”

There are only two things that can keep these young men out of prison: “their family and the church,” Kalamaja said.

Read more about Kalamaja and his prison ministry at the Wisconsin Province website.

Jesuit Father Michael Kennedy, executive director of the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative (JRJI), was given the 2010 Distinguished Service Award by the Chief Probation Officers of California in January.

Fr. Kennedy, who advocates for the transformation of the justice system to become more restorative than punitive, was honored for his work at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, where he is co-chaplain. His focus is on juveniles who are facing life sentences for serious crimes.

Kennedy introduces the youth to contemplative prayer using the Spiritual Exercises and guides them in meditation, which enables them to lead each other in prayer and meditation. For more on Kennedy’s ministry, read The Tidings story.

Why does he join the Society of Jesus?

How does he know his calling?

The Jesuit Conference of the United States has launched a new video series interviewing Jesuits from across the country discussing their vocations, their various paths to becoming a Jesuit and what it has meant to them to answer God’s call. National Jesuit News will feature a new video interview each week. You can watch additional videos by going to the Jesuits Revealed channel on YouTube.

Today’s video features Jesuit Father Kurt Denk of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus discussing his experience of finding Jesus during his ministry to prison inmates. You can watch additional videos with Fr. Denk here and here at the Jesuits Revealed channel on YouTube.